Trump Compares Strikes On Iran To Hiroshima Bombing, Says "It Ended The War"
US President Donald Trump said that the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities last week had resulted in the "total obliteration" of the country's nuclear capabilities, and had set the country's atomic programme back by "decades".
However, according to a report by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Iran's nuclear facilities that had been struck by the United States, such as Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, had been damaged, but not destroyed, and could be restored. On Wednesday, at a Nato summit in The Hague on Wednesday, Trump dismissed the intelligence report and compared the US strikes on Iran to the second world war bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing that ended a war," Trump said at the summit. "This ended [the Israel-Iran] war. If we didn't take [out the nuclear facilities], they would be fighting right now," he added.
The bombings that took place during World War II, were intended to force Japan's unconditional surrender.
Trump said that the US Defence Intelligence Agency "really don't know" about the damage and further stated that damage to Iran's facilities can be fully gauged only after Israel delivered an assessment.
"The intelligence says, 'We don't know, it could have been very severe.' That's what the intelligence says. So I guess that's correct, but I think we can take the 'we don't know'. It was very severe. It was obliteration," Trump added.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history. The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed! both The Times and CNN are getting slammed by the public!"
Dan Caine, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff said that although the evaluation suggested that the nuclear sites sustained "severe damage and destruction", final assessments "would take time".
The White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the report was "flat out wrong" and "a clear attempt to demean President Trump", adding, "Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration."
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